Diamond Aircraft has resumed flight testing of its D-JET personal jet following a temporary grounding of the project due to financial constraints.
In March of this year the Austrian manufacturer, which is working on the personal jet from its base in London, Ontario in Canada, grounded the D-JET program due to a funding shortfall that resulted in around 200 employees working on the project to be furloughed.
The D-JET’s financial pains were partly a result of the Canadian government refusing a US$35 million loan to keep the project in the air, but as we’ve previously reported Diamond has since secured private funding to get the program up and running again.
D-JET prototype 003 recently completed a successful one-hour flight – the first D-JET flight since March 27. The test flight included shakedown of aircraft systems, control sweeps, gear cycling, flap cycling, verification of navigation equipment and software, several touch and goes, and completion of some control system test points.
“Our team’s spirits are certainly lifted with the resumption of flight activities,” Diamond Aircraft President Peter Maurer said. “Being able to bring back part of the team allowed us to resume flight operations and we are looking forward to finishing the campaign with 002 and 003, while in parallel finalising detail design work and starting the production of conforming aircraft 004.”
Diamond test pilot Mark Elwess reported that the flight was uneventful and no issues or aircraft snags were encountered. Diamond hopes to continue making progress on its D-JET flight test program on a regular basis.
One of the prototype Diamond D-JETs during flight testing. (Diamond Aircraft)
